The Chronicles of Nemida, Book 1
by Onikoneko83
Summary: In a world beyond Zothique, beyond Poseidonis, beyond Hyperborea, a boy awakens without a past, and sets out on a journey to find out what he used to be, and what he has now become.
1. Prologue

The Chronicle of Nemida

3rd Draft

Conceived and Written by Onikoneko

Prologue

A sodden, mist-drenched field.

The sparse grass was occasionally broken by uneven mounds. Some of the mounds still twitched and moaned, fallen, but not yet slain. The sun was powerless to pierce the drear, overcast sky. The fallen would not have even the comfort of a single warming ray of light as their life ebbed out of their torn, broken forms. Some of the mounds lie in such a fashion that it was obvious they had fallen to each others' weapons. Beliefs, ideology, motivation, all was cast aside as the figures, moments ago at odds, now joined to face the end of their mortality together.

Confused sounds tumbled out of the misty opalescence. Some would describe it as the hue and cry of battle. Cries certainly made up a large portion of the cacophony. Screams of pain, terror, blind rage, and other disreputable aspects of mortality. The deadened rings of implements of steel and wood crashing against each other. Vessels of destruction, wielded by vessels of flesh and blood, sent forth by at least two opposing factions to demonstrate the superiority of their own ideology. Crashes, screams, and muffled thuds as, at the mere cost of several hundred ordinary lives, an exceptional elite few gained the chance to hold control over the field they had now turned into a slaughterhouse.

A disturbance traveled through the mist. A single shadow detached itself from the grey void, striding slowly, yet purposefully through the scattered mounds of that which was either so recently alive, or had precious little time left to enjoy the life it had. The figure appeared quite unique in ways other than the fact that he was, for the moment, the only one in sight still capable of bipedal motion. Perhaps it was the fact that while he was clad in the raiment of battle, he was not besieged by the effects of battle. His mail was neither dented nor dulled, but shone with an unearthly lustre. The fine leather padding was not torn or sullied in the slightest. No blood, either his own, or that of those he presumably battled, stained his form. The two claidmores, a full two meters each, yet held with ease and grace, were not chipped nor dented in the slightest.

It was not just the anomalous cleanliness of the figure that attracted attention. The physical beauty of the figure was also rather uncanny. Well over two meters tall, the individual had a form that was unsettlingly pleasing to the eye. Ebon, perfectly braided locks of hair swung almost to his waist. The skin was deeply tanned, yet completely uniform in its colour, with no visible imperfections or scarring. The eyes, though looking bored, glowed with an disquieting radiance. Aside from the fact that the pupils of the eyes were a cloudy white, while the 'whites' themselves were of the deepest indigo, the figure was of the utmost in mortal beauty in every fashion.

The disorganized clanking of armoured feet drew closer. The mists parted a second time. This time, half a dozen dirty, haggard mortals were disgorged into visibility. No discomforting, unearthly beauty hung about them. Sweaty, dirty, bloodstained, they appeared a natural part of the world around them. One of the group spotted the lone, ethereal individual. With a hoarse cry of 'For the Broodmother!" the soldiers charged the figure, chipped and soiled weapons upraised.

The figure's initial reaction to this was to simply stop walking. A look of long-suffering boredom crossed his face, as if he was resigning himself to doing some tedious, pointless action that had already been performed countless times today. The eyes rotated, focusing on the charging humans for the first time. They narrowed. The claidmore in the figure's left hand rose, the two meters of steel supported without any apparent effort in a relaxed grip. The narrow lips open, and a single word was issued in a whisper that somehow carried over the tattered screams of the rapidly approaching mob, "Die."

The claidmore was swung, and a blinding flash of light erupted from the blade. No sound accompanied this visual spectacle. In fact, it seemed that the silence was its own material being, for it smothered the cries of the others. The figure held the claidmore at the end of its arc, an inscrutable expression on his face. The light died down to its former misty dimness. The cries did not return with the fading of the light, nor did the clanking of armour or the panting of the attackers. Six new mounds, horrific amalgamations of charred flesh and melted steel, decorated the field.

The claidmore was lowered. The figure turned to continue striding it its former direction.

The figure froze.

If the expression of the figure's face a moment before was vague, the look that crossed over his features now was the epitome of enigmatic. He cocked his head slightly, as if listening to something aside from the general muffled sounds of battle. Slowly, methodically, he sheathed the claidmores. One at his side, the other sheath strapped securely to his back. He continued listening.

A barely visible shiver passed through his body. The lips opened a second time, though the words whispered lacked their former carrying power, "The prophecy."

The figure turned and strode purposefully away, this time at a much faster clip. He headed to the north.

The hue and cry of battle continued to filter through the now empty patch of field.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

A field.

This time, neither empty, nor clad in mist. But still, swathed in darkness. The waning crescent moon cast a watery, uncertain illumination on the landscape. A single house, rudely simplistic in construction, topped the rise. Other rises were visible in the distance. Between them, in the deeply shadowed depressions, the mists lurked. No longer cloaking the scene in a smothering, vapourous blanket, they straggled about in isolated clumps, like the last patches of snow making a final, vain stand against the inexorable march of spring. Some of the rises and depressions sported patches of trees and shrubbery. More houses of similar design were visible on the further rises. To the southwest, the intermittent copses of trees morphed to an unbroken blanket of forest.

The air was calm.

The air was calm.

An anomalous breeze sprung up. Some sparse, fallen leaves of the late summer were idly tossed about by aimless searching currents of air. All about the house they searched, invisible djinn on an incomprehensible quest. A breeze circled about a single crude headstone, erected a dozen meters to the east of the house. It had found what it was looking for. The questing breezes turned into a single unified gale. The leaves and detritus picked up in their search was wrenched into an ever-tightening spiral over the headstone. Without warning, the spectral cyclone ceased, as if drawn suddenly into the earth. Several dozen leaves and twigs, suddenly bereft of support, fell to the ground, forming an eerie spiral centered around the headstone. Silence returned. An expectant silence.

The silence continued.

An owl hooted softly in the distance, as if disappointed that there wasn't more to the show than a brief, inexplicable display of gusts. The moon slowly coasted towards the horizon, apparently giving up the hope of seeing anything else of interest that evening. Nothing more occurred for a full half hour.

Another half hour passed before anything happened. Soon, though, after a full hour of inactivity, something moved across the field. A squat shadow slunk quickly back and forth between the rises, stopping every now and again to pick up some object and nibble in interest on some random piece of detritus. Its haphazard path eventually took it close to the headstone, sticking unevenly from the earth, as if the ground had given itself a jaunty, if morbid headpiece. A meter from the headstone, the raccoon froze. Slowly, warily, it turned its head to face the ramshackle house, detecting movement from somewhere under its shadowed eaves. A pair of yellow orbs glowed in the waning moonlight. A grey cat, now practically black under the shadow of night, gazed with mild interest at the raccoon. It wasn't a large cat, little bigger than a kitten in fact. It regarded the raccoon with interest. Not fear, nor hostility, just interest. It almost looked as though the cat were waiting for something to occur.

The raccoon had spent several years surviving under the shadows of the humans in the area. Though not intelligent in any way recognizable by those same humans, a deep cunning had been evolved as a necessity for survival. If it were possible to translate the stream of thoughts that went through the raccoon's head into something comprehendible to humans, the result might look something like this: I see it. It sees me. It sees me seeing it. It's not attacking. Keep an eye on it.

The raccoon eventually returned to scrounging for food, though much slower and more deliberately than before, casting many a cautious glance towards the feline on the stoop. The leaves and assorted detritus that had fallen around the grave was a treasure trove of possibility to the bushy-tailed mammal, and thus, it spent far more time searching through for various edibles.

As it was so intent on both its search for food, and keeping track of the cat on the porch, the raccoon did not notice the growing disturbance in the ground nearby it. Didn't notice, that is, until a dirt-soaked fist burst through the ground mere centimeters away from the scrounging mammal. Shrill, choked cries came from the raccoon as it stumbled and scrambled madly away. The cat watched it go, something approaching amusement reflected in its eyes. Then, it turned its gaze back upon the headstone. The fist had retreated back into the earth, were, joined by a second hand, it began to push and shovel earth away from itself at a frantic rate.

The ground swelled upward. Two forearms burst from the soil. The hands flailed about, grasping at the ground, the grass, anything they could hold onto. One of the hands struck the headstone. The hand froze, as if stunned from the blow. Then, both promptly grabbed the sides of the thick, mineral slab and pulled. Cracks appeared in the soil as a larger mass was dragged upward from its depths. Finally, in a shower of dirt and woodchips, a human figure burst from the ground, sprawling across the grass and leaves.

The figure was deathly pale and emaciated-looking. It was clad in ragged, torn white cloth, coated both in dirt, and splinters of wood that presumably came from a cheaply constructed coffin. The hair, though hideously tangled and dirt stained, looked as though all colour had been drained from it. The outlines of bones showed clearly through the stretched, starved-looking skin.

Shakily, the figure pushed itself up to its hands and knees. Sobbing gasps of breath were hitched in. The figure remained this way for a full thirty seconds. The breathing slowed…then stopped altogether. The figure slowly leaned backwards, lifting its pale, scrawny hands from the ground. Now on its knees, the figure breathed experimentally onto one hand, blowing some of the dust and nitre off. It stopped. No breath came from its mouth. The figure seemed to reach a conclusion, breathing was not, apparently, necessary for survival. The figure leaned his head back and shook the ivory hair from his face.

His features, like the rest of his body, were rather gaunt. Despite this, the face was rather youthful looking. A gently curved nose and the high cheekbones of a boy in his fifteenth or sixteenth year. The eyes were the exception to this. They were dull, dead. A sterile, pale blue colour, leeched of life, seemingly like the rest of his body. But they weren't empty. Thought, intelligence, curiosity was in those eyes, if not the spark of biological life. The eyes turned and focused on the object that was so instrumental in the figure's escape from its soily entombment, the headstone.

"Beloved son and brother, taken from us long before his time: Nemida"

The dry lips opened, silently mouthing the word 'Nemida'.

Flakes of dirt spattered the ground as the figure slowly pushed itself up to a standing position. The dead, yet strangely alert eyes transferred their gaze from the gravestone to the surrounding landscape. The moon had nearly fully set. A vast majority of the land was now bathed in impenetrable shadow. Yet, the figure still gazed into the shadow, his eyes flicking back and forth as if taking in details mortal eyes could not see. The eyes came to rest upon the ramshackle house. They focused more, and came to meet the unblinking feline gaze coming from the stoop.

A step was taken, awkwardly. The second and third steps were slightly more assured. By the time the sixth stride was reached, the figure appeared fully confident in its ambulatory ability. The distance between the figure and the house decreased. A thinning trail of dislodged, funereal dirt marked his passage from the headstone towards the porch. Reaching the porch, the figure stopped. Slowly, methodically, the figure bent over, extending a hand towards the cat. The cat delicately sniffed the hand. Apparently it was not displeased with what its nose told it, for it gave the hand a loving nuzzle, and leapt forward to intertwine itself among the figure's legs.

Following the cat with his eyes, the figure realized for the first time that it was clad it little more than a tattered, white funeral raiment. The white was almost unnoticeable amidst the dirt stains. The figure looked back towards the gravestone. He looked at the ragged hole by it. The figure looked at its own minimal clothing. A conclusion appeared to be reached. The figure turned back towards the house.

A gaunt hand reached out and pressed the rotted, wooden latch of the door. The latch turned, and the door opened, albeit with much complaining from the aged hinges. A single lamp burned from within. Visible in the flickering light was a single figure, aged and bent, apparently expecting the death-garbed visitor.

"Nemida, me boy. Ye have returned!" came the cracked voice.

The figure paused, considering this, "So…I am Nemida."

"Course ye are, boy, course ye are!"

"Then…that is my grave out there?"

"Tis so, 'tis so," the aged figure replied, "Guess we was wrong in assumin' ye be dead!"

"And then, you must be my father, right?"

"Quite true, quite true!"

Nemida simply stared at the figure. From the nebulous blur of what he assumed was his memory came brief flashes. The name, yes, that felt like it was his. The house…was familiar too. The cat, which continued winding its way around his legs, yes, he definitely remembered that the cat was important to him, even if he didn't know why. Brief flashes, though. Brief flashes was all it was. Time, a sequence of events. Memory, the ability to look back over observed events. Nemida looked back over his observed events. A more or less continuous thread extended from his present situation back…fifteen minutes. He had found himself in a confined, wooden case. Caught in a rotting, claustrophobic sepulcher sealed under a barrier of earth. Sheer blind panic drove the maddened upward convulsions. Jerkingly and spasmodically, tearing his way out of the flimsy coffin, fighting upward, driven by an all-consuming fright of tight, airless confines.

Nemida shivered, looking at his hands. Not all was right. He had felt stabbing pains when making his initial panicked drive for freedom. The coffin must have splintered, driving wooden daggers into his desperately seeking hands. Nemida had neither the time nor the inclination to look at his wounds. Now, though, the complete lack of both wounds and pain gave him pause. Not all was right.

The figure in front of him, smiling genially. The same general shape as Nemida, human. But it was not right. The head bobbled erratically. The eyes shone brighter than Nemida's own dead pupils, glittering in the lamplight. But they appeared even more lifeless for it. No thought, no emotion behind them. The face seemed less like a face than a pallid, waxen mask. The figure's movements were jerky, uncoordinated. Nemida had no idea what a marionette was, but for some reason, he kept half-expecting to see strings extending from the elderly figure's appendages.

"I'm…hungry." As Nemida said it, he suddenly realized it was true.

The figure responded immediately, almost before Nemida had finished the sentence. "Food, yes, food! On the table for you!"

With that said, the figure resumed its idle bobbling. Nemida continued looking at it. Its actions appeared more and more disturbing. Nemida felt like he wasn't talking to a human being at all. On a whim, he repeated himself, "I'm hungry."

A cold shiver went through Nemida as the creature bobbled happily and replied, "Food, yes, food! On the table for you!"

The same voice, the same inflexion, exactly. The figure, having said its share, resumed its placid, bobbling pose. Without warning, the cat turned towards the only other doorway in the room, now cloaked in deep shadow, hissed, and scuttled out the door. Thrown off by the distraction, Nemida gave in to the growing pangs of hunger inside and sat down at the crude table. There was indeed a plate set out. It was filled with corn and some sort of meat, poultry it looked like.

Before starting, Nemida gave the figure that had the outward appearance of his father a sharp glance. No reaction. The figure had not even turned to watch him sit down, and stood looking vacantly at the spot Nemida had previously occupied, bobbling happily. Nemida tried an experiment, "Then that is my grave out there?"

The figure jerked slightly, then rotated to face Nemida. The mouth opened, and the voice came out, the same as before, "Tis so, 'tis so. Guess we was wr…"

"Father, get some sleep."

The figure's voice stopped at the command. There was nothing gradual about it, as soon as the third voice had uttered the command, the wrinkled figure's voice cut off abruptly. The figure turned and hobbled stiffly through the second doorway, where the new voice had come from. The voice seemed infinitely more alive, having a dynamically changing inflexion that appeared to actually react with its surroundings. The voice was dry and cultured, and there was an almost palpable air of understated superiority about it.

The figure that now stepped out was no less incongruous with the humble surroundings than he was with his own outfit. For a brief moment, Nemida was goaded into mirth by what he saw. Surely whoever this was could not possibly expect him to believe, for even a second, that he was what his outfit would suggest him to be. A ramshackle shack, with a stiff, waxen puppet masquerading as his father within. Now, a figure of obviously regal bearing and posture, clad in the outfit of a simple peasant? Nemida carefully kept his face blank as his eyes swept over the figure before him.

He was attractive, to say the least. The ebony locks, for the most part, were tied back in a firm braid. A few errant wisps descended over the the face, the face that seemed perfect to a fault. If it weren't for the eyes, the figure would have radiated a powerful, almost sexual attraction. The eyes, though, quickly quenched any thought that sexuality had anything to do with this person's goals. They smouldered darkly, containing within them the carefully fanned flames of amibition.

"Your memory appears to have slipped, little brother," the figure said without preamble.

"Are you a good big brother, or a bad big brother?" Nemida countered, determined not to let himself be swept over by the oddness of the situation.

"You've been gone for quite a while."

"I don't recall ever leaving."

"One in your state wouldn't recall much."

"Had I a mirror, I might see a family resemblance."

"Had you a memory, you might see what I seek."

"Your clothes seem ill-fitting, they would probably look better on someone who acts like the menial class they designate."

"Your vitality seems rather confused, it left your body half a year ago to go wandering."

"Who are you?"

"What use would it be to you, who does not even know himself?"

"What is going on?"

"There is something amiss about you."

"What's your name?"

"Mihotyt."

Nemida stopped the dialogue. He realized he had lost the game, rather badly. Despite that, the eyes still bored into him, searching for something unseen. Nemida felt slightly itchy, as if his skin were slowly being burned away by that gaze, revealing all that lay underneath. Things here were strange, not what he expected. Was this what the world was supposed to be like, and his expectations merely some skewed side-effect of his amnesia? Had sanity fled along with his memory?

The sky outside was violet. The sun lurked just below the horizon, as if waiting for something to wander into the ambush it has set up. Inside, Nemida blistered under the gaze of Mihotyt. "I'm hungry, I'd like to eat alone," Nemida said.

"You're lost, the presence of another can help."

"Regardless, I'd like to eat alone."

"Your choices have consequences," Mihotyt turned and strode out the back door, leaving it open.

Nemida stalked to the doorway, looking to see what direction his brother had gone. There was no one outside. Calmly, he turned and went back inside, sitting down at the table. He took a spoonful of corn and smelled it. It smelled the way he would expect corn to smell. The plate looked the way he would expect a plate to look. It seemed his amnesia applied only to individual objects, not categories. He knew what a person was, but he had no memory of any specific people. He knew what a house was, but he did not know of any specific homes. He put the spoonful of corn in his mouth.

A taste of withered eternity fell upon his tongue. The taste of corpses that had long passed the stage of putrid decay, and had become little more than dusty shells. Nemida coughed, spitting the corn upon the table and retching violently. Slowly, he pushed himself back up, wiping the blood away from his lips. He looked at his hands.

Blood. On his hands, dripping from his lips, mixed with the half-chewed pile of corn on the table. Nemida looked evenly upon all this. His left eye twitched slightly. He got up and wandered through the only other doorway in the room. He came to the only other room in the house, the bedroom. His father lay there in the darkness, presumably asleep. There was no light in the room, yet Nemida could see all that was there. No, not see, he could only see the darkness. Yet, he knew where everything was. It was as if there was some sense within him that his mind had no idea how to comprehend the signals from, and so, fed it to him in the form of sight that wasn't sight.

"Father?" Nemida said, intending to rouse the sleeper, "Father? What are humans supposed to act like?"

There was no reply. There was no sound whatsoever. No snoring, no breathing. Nemida cautiously stalked around the side of the bed and prodded the lump under the blankets experimentally, "Father?"

Nothing. No warmth met his hand when he prodded the lump, though it did have the shape and feeling of a human being beneath the blankets. Nemida accepted this calmly, and pulled the blankets back. His father was there, completely immobile. Sightless eyes stared vacantly at the city. Cold, waxen flesh drooped unnaturally from the artificial, skeletal framework. Nemida calmly put the blanket back in place. He turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind him. He stood by the door and took a deep breath. Then, Nemida screamed.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

The scream was a rather impressive one. Though, for the most part, locked within the confines of the flimsy shack, it still reverberated with such a quality that all the nuances of combined horror and frustration were quite adequately expressed to anyone within. So good was the scream, in fact, that Nemida quickly followed it up with a second one. After that was done, Nemida felt there was something missing, and just to be certain, cut loose with a third scream.

A dim light was filtering through the single window of the house. The night was effectively over, though the sun had not fully crested the horizon. Nemida came to the sudden decision that some fresh air, and a relief from the rather claustrophobic confines of the house would be most welcome at this point. With that in mind, Nemida strode forth boldly and threw open the door, trying to muster the courage to face the day, though he remained depressingly convinced that it would probably end up being much like the night.

The sun, now mostly free of the horizon and just beginning its long trip across the celestial dome, bathed Nemida in its light. For a moment, Nemida almost forgot about the horrors of the night. His awakening in a confining, nitrous prison. The corn which turned to ash upon his tongue. The unsettling, regal figure that claimed to be his brother. Even the waxen model that wore the features of his father was pushed to the back of his mind by the warming, rejuvenating rays of the day-orb.

The rays were incredibly warming. So warming that some might even claim they were burning. Nemida's contented smile faltered a bit as the welcome warmth of the morning light was rapidly changing into something rather different and not at all welcome. It was at this time he became aware of an omnipresent, growing, hissing noise. No, not completely omnipresent, the hiss, that of something burning away rather rapidly, only came from wherever his body was present. Nemida's placid smile turned into a confused frown as he looked down at his rapidly charring hands. Finally, his mind, initially rendered sluggish by the relaxing warmth of the sun, put together the facts that Nemida's skin was turning black, it felt like something was burning him, and there was a hissing noise, and he realized he was being burned away by the sun.

With a shriek rendered slightly hoarse by the previous bout of screaming, Nemida leapt away from the doorway, directly into the single beam of light shining through the window. Another shriek, this one even less coherent than the last, and Nemida dived clumsily under the table. He closed his eyes, wrapped his smarting arms around his legs, and commenced rocking back and forth, trying as hard as he could to will the strange, alien, unpleasant world that had popped up around him away.

The world didn't seem too eager to go away. In fact, if anything, it was determined to open the door of the house, come inside, giggling happily, and sit down on the floor by Nemida. Nemida tried to ignore the part of the world that sat on the floor by him, giggling. The part of the world that was on the floor continued to giggle, obviously taking great amusement from Nemida. Nemida gave in, he decided he'd have to deal with reality. "What do you want?"

More giggling.

"Who are you?"

More giggling.

"Why are you giggling?"

"Because I'm happy to see you."

"That makes one of us."

"You aren't happy?"

"Do I look happy?"

"You look uncomfortable."

"I am uncomfortable."

"Come on out then."

"I'd rather not."

"Okay then."

There was a shuffling noise. Nemida risked opening his eyes. The sight he saw was not too disagreeable. As the voice implied, it was a decidedly feminine figure. Nemida tried focusing on something other than the alluring curves as she leapt spritely back to her feet. She looked back down at him, noticed him looking at her, and giggled again. Nemida found something else to concentrate on. The eyes. If the body appeared to be bursting with energy (and sensuality, Nemida couldn't help but notice. Each light step seemed calculated to bring as much of the body into contact with something as possible, the air, her clothes, her hand caressing the wall), then the eyes pretty much exploded with it. It was as if all the vibrancy of simply being alive had collected into those twin, violet orbs. The lips, too, were purple…as was the hair. The clothes, what clothes there were, tended to vary from a deep, rough brown, to a glistening emerald green. To tell the truth, she almost looked exactly like a flower. A pale-skinned flower that appeared to be having quite a lot of trouble simply standing still. She bounced happily around the room. Opening cabinets at random, she appeared shocked with pleasant discovery with whatever lay inside. Eventually, she found one with that held the earthen jugs filled with a crude wine.

Squeeking with joy, she took out the jug. It must have been half as tall as she was, yet she pranced joyfully about with it, holding it in one hand. Crouching again by Nemida, she took a swig. Nemida smiled despite himself as a brief grimace crossed her face. "Tasty!" she said, then offered the jug to Nemida.

Nemida hesitantly took the jug. He was certain that, like the corn, the wine would taste remarkably like ash. He knew there was no good reason to take it if all he would be doing is spitting it back out. Nemida looked at the girl. She looked, for all her childlike antics, pretty much the same age as him, if quite a bit shorter. She stared back expectantly, waiting for him to imbibe. Nemida didn't want to repeat what happened last night. He looked at her, saw both the expectancy and the certainty in her eyes. Nemida drank.

The wine tasted horrible, but Nemida was so surprised that he was tasting wine and not ash that he took two swigs. It was only then that he realized it was a rather dry wine and collapsed in a coughing fit as his throat tried desperately to seal itself against further intrusion. Once again, the girl squealed in joy, and yanked Nemida out from under the table. Yes, yanked is the proper word. Despite her diminutive stature, Nemida found himself bodily hauled out from underneath. Nemida tried to catch his breath.

Nemida remembered that he did not need to breath.

The previous taciturnity once again settle upon him.

Nemida felt a hand upon his shoulder. He looked up and once again found the violet eyes staring back at him. For the moment, the girl had stopped skipping about. For the moment, she remained stock still and stared at him. Nemida saw, for just a brief moment, sorrow in those eyes. The hand moved from his shoulder and rested softly on his cheek. It was warm. Nemida placed his hand over it, "Thanks."

"I came for you."

"What?"

"You asked me what I wanted, I came for you."

"Oh, why?"

"We should leave soon, it's not safe here."

"I got that impression."

"You're missing your old thoughts."

"My…oh, my memory. Yes, that has been noticed."

"We should go soon. It's not fun here."

"Where?"

"Laumas will probably want to go with us, he likes you."

"Laumas? Oh, the cat? Is that his name?"

"I'll get your stuff, just keep sitting. Or better yet, lay down, it's more comfortable."

"Okay, I'll…hey, wait!"

The girl stopped, she had been in the act of lightly skipping to the other door, the one that led into the bedroom with the waxen doll of Nemida's father. "Hmm?"

"Er, well first off, you haven't answered a whole lot of my questions," Nemida said, "And secondly, I don't think it's a good idea to leave right now. The sun…does things to me."

The girl giggled again, "Don't worry, sweety, you're no fun all burned up. We'll wait for night, you should be safe," A brief moment of uncertainty crossed her face, unsettling Nemida, "…yeah…should be safe."

Nemida leaned back against the wall. From the other room came the sounds of organized destruction. He heard the sound of the girl's voice raised in a petulant rage, "Where did they put it!"

Some more destruction. A pause. A slightly muffled, joyful squeal. The girl came prancing out of the room, something in her hands, "Your dad's a real stiff," she said matter-of-factly.

Nemida hardly heard, he was staring at what was in her hands. He wondered what the pale thing heading towards it, from the corner of his vision, was. He realized it was his hand. With an effort, he forced his hand to drop. "What…what is it?" He asked.

"It's yours," the girl replied bluntly, pouting slightly because her pun about Nemida's father hadn't gotten noticed.

The thing was decidedly hard to focus on. It wasn't because of any odd shape or something like that, it was in the shape of the average quarterstaff used as both walking-aids and defense by the peasants in the area. It was the fact that there, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be nothing there to focus on. Where it had colour, it was the deep purple of distant nebulae. Where it lacked colour, it was of the deepest ebon, yet it was so much more than that…or less. It went beyond a lack of colour…it was a complete lack of material. It was as if the girl held in her hands a portable, long, thin hole into empty space. Nemida found himself once again reaching out towards it. The girl squeaked in fear and twisted away, drawing the staff out of his grasp.

"What was that for?" asked Nemida, trying to ignore the smooth, pale skin that had been moved within inches of his face by the girl's movement, "I thought you said that was mine."

"It is yours," the girl said. Nemida looked up, her voice had, for once, lost its bouncy, fluttering quality, "It has some of your memories buried within it. You should know that before you take it, because the memories long to be re-united with their owner, and it could be, well, weird and stuff if you weren't expecting them."

Nemida only nodded silently. He decided not to point out that 'weird' had become pretty much the expected norm over the past few hours. The girl handed him the staff. Nemida touched it, taking it in his hands. He was fairly certain he touched it, that's what his eyes told him, at least. He felt no texture, no material, not even a noticeable change in temperature in his hands, though. It was like he had his hands curled around nothing more than air. "What is it?"

"It is the Staff of the Indigo Void," the girl said, "It is yours, and now you should sleep so you'll be all awake and ready to go when the sun sets!"

"What, sleep here? On the floor?"

"Not on the floor, silly, it's all hard and uncomfortable. You'll sleep on my lap."

Nemida opened his mouth and stopped. The 'weird', as the girl had put it, was still continuing in its uninterrupted stream. Dull terror at his entire situation still thrummed through Nemida's body. Uncertainty hovered ominuously, like some black bird of prey hangs precariously in the sky, waiting for a moment of insecurity to strike. But the weirdness being proposed to him now was a weirdness Nemida felt more comfortable dealing with. "Lay down," the girl said softly.

Nemida found himself complying, placing his head carefully on the warm legs of the girl. She placed her hand upon his cheek again. A soft comfort seemed to radiate from her body. Nemida felt himself relaxing despite the situation around him. She really was quite comfortable. Nemida drowsily wondered why, when he was in contact with her, he suddenly felt safe. "Llewellis," the girl said.

"Hmm?" Nemida asked, closing his eyes.

"My name, you asked, it's Llewellis."

"Oh. I…I like that name."

And so Nemida went to sleep.

The comforting look that was previously on Llewellis' face vanished. It was quickly replaced by a musing, yet concerned expression. The one she feared, the one who wanted to take Nemida for himself, hadn't arrived yet, thankfully. But there was something else. Someone had expected Nemida back. Someone else. Someone other than her, or the Lord of Frost. Someone had animated a doll in the form of his father.

"Wish I knew who it was," Llewellis said quietly, and began her day-long vigil, softly stroking the hair of the sleeper on her lap.


	4. Chapter 3

3)

Nemida slept. As his already significantly altered body entered into an even more relaxed state, what few signs of life he had faded. His breathing, no longer consciously controlled, faded away entirely. Despite having all outward appearances of a corpse, Llewellis continued to softly stroke the pale hair. She looked down at the motionless figure on her lap, pity in her eyes. "What happened to you, Nesh?"

Though outwardly, Nemida showed no signs of life, as he slept, he was troubled by dreams. Dreams are often built solely upon a recombination of the memories of the preceding period of wakefulness. Occasionally, something new and unexpected comes through. Other times, worries, obsessions, and other traits surface to plague the sleeper. Nemida, with no memory to speak of, did not have much to draw upon to fill the land he entered, the land of dreams, though he tried to make do with what he had.

Nemida once again sat at the table inside the peasant house. His father was once again urging him to eat. A queer, tinny echo fluctuated back and forth through his father's voice, as if he were using something other than human vocal chords to speak. Nemida picked up the spoon that lay beside his plate. He looked down at what he was about to scoop into his mouth. The plate was full of splintered wood and rusted nails. The remnants of his coffin. Nemida tried to stop, tried not to eat the charnel meal before him. He couldn't, his hand moved relentlessly towards the plate. A single tear of pain coursed down the side of Nemida's face as the spoon entered his mouth. His jaw worked furiously up and down. The splinters jabbed viciously into his tongue, his gums. Crooked, jagged nails ripped easily through his cheeks and lips. Blood flowed copiously from the wounds, pooling on the half-emptied plate. Nemida looked down again, half involuntarily, and saw that it was not wholly blood, but blood mixed with ash, forming a viscous, grayish paste. Nemida tried to scream, but he had already swallowed a mouthful of splinters, and his throat was now as ravaged as his mouth. Nemida wondered if he would choke, then remembered that he did not need to breath.

Nemida looked at his father, and noticed once again the waxen, doll-like nature of his face. The eyes stared at him sightlessly, with all the lustre and life of a pair of glass beads. Nemida now saw that his father's hands, feet, and throat were all pierced. Extending from them were knotted cords. His father was nothing more than a giant marionette, his strings being pulled from the shadows. Nemida followed the cords, and found they ended at the doorway to the other room. Standing in the doorway was a darker shadow. The shadow had the shape of the one of claimed to be his elder brother, Mihotyt. From deep within the shaded face burned two fiery orbs. Mihotyt's eyes burned with an undefined lust. Nemida found himself falling into those eyes, becoming incinerated by the inferno of…jealousy? Burning within.

A sudden chill cut through the burning. An unseasonable coldness crept into the house. Nemida tore himself away from the conflagration of his brother's eyes and saw that frost was creeping inward from the corners of the house. The frost had a detestable, greasy tinge to it. Nemida could literally feel the presence of something creeping about outside the house. Something which brought the unclean cold of winter with it. Something that wanted to get in, wanted Nemida. Nemida tried to flee, but was unable to move. Looking down, Nemida saw that splinters of wood and coffin-nails bound his flesh to the wooden chair. Something struck the door of the house, cracking the lintel. It struck again. A sickly-bluish, icy liquid began to seep from underneath the door. It was about to come in.

It didn't.

The liquid and door had gone. The marionette patrifaux was no more. The enigmatic brother had vanished. The nails, splinters, chairs, table, and wounds had left. Nemida, too, was no longer there. There was nothing, simply the unplumbed depths of possibility. The vast, empty space where Nemida's memory used to be. Seeking some sort of somnambular comfort during this unnatural, death-like state of rest, Nemida's mind probed deeper into itself.

It found something.

Llewellis' voice echoed through the void, it issued a warning, "It is yours. It has some of your memories buried within it. You should know that, because the memories long to be re-united with their owner."

An object appeared in the emptiness. A staff composed of a darkness that was greater than the absence of light. A staff with memories locked inside, memories that arced from the staff to their true owner when he touched it. Memories that had since then lay deep within his subconscious, waiting until a moment such as this to awaken. The staff seemed to invert itself, so that the staff became the empty void, and the void became the staff. Then, the memories that were locked inside the staff painted the void, leaving behind them a scene from Nemida's past, with the staff there.

The staff was held in a pair of slim, dusky hands. The hands belonged to a woman. She had the dark olive skin-tone of those from the south. With that coloured skin came a pair of exotic, oriental eyes. The eyes were currently focused on Nemida. It wasn't the Nemida who lay sleeping on Llewellis' lap, though. The eyes were focused on a different Nemida. A Nemida with dark brown, almost black hair. A Nemida with bright green eyes, and a skin that, though pale, was flush with lifeblood. She was clad in what appeared to be a long, thin strip of black silk. It wrapped around her body, starting at her knees, and ending at her neck, revealing much of the dusky skin, yet leaving much hidden. The eyes, framed in charcoal liner, blinked their long, heavy lashes. "This is the Staff of the Indigo Void," She said, giving it to him.

"So…you must go?" The Nemida replied, though he only looked a year younger, at most, physically, he looked an eternity younger spiritually and emotionally.

"The short-sighted scum here call my healing 'witchcraft'. They'd happily burn anyone who lets me aid them. My skills are of no use here."

"You're of use to me, Krusany, your presence gives me untold amounts of comfort."

"It will also get you a noose around your neck, you buffoon," Krusany replied, "being my friend only makes you an easier target for the baneful ignorance of these puling lackwits. No, I must journey south, to a land not populated with such ignorant blockheads."

"Feh, pox on them, I'd happily give up my life to be with you," Nemida said, "But I can't abide seeing you unhappy. I only wish I could journey with you."

"You're needed here, and I'm needed south," Krusany said, "Don't fret too much, though."

"Why not?"

"That staff, it will aid you. It acts as a connection between the one who gives it, and the one who receives it. If I'm ever in danger for my life, you will know it, the staff will tell you with a sign. Also, though I don't see what use it could be, the staff acts as a receptacle of memory. So long as you have the staff, you are guaranteed to never forget me, no matter what may transpire."

"Like I'd need the staff to remember you," Nemida replied, "But I swear upon everything I've ever held as meaningful, should the staff send me the sign, I will devote every ounce of energy within me to finding and protecting you."

"A lofty promise," Krusany scoffed, "But knowing you, you're just arrogant and stubborn enough to hold to it." She turned a blazing stare on Nemida, who quite helplessly wilted beneath it, "Oh…and Nemida?..."

Nemida had trouble finding his tongue for a second, perhaps because his mouth had suddenly gone rather dry, "Er…yes?"

Krusany's hand darted forward, grabbing Nemida's shirt and yanking him forward. Nemida found himself locked in a kiss with her. The kiss was much like her other actions, aggressive, without remorse, and yet alluring and rejuvenating. As she slowly drew away, she bit his lower lip, a quick nip, yet still hard enough to draw blood. Still holding his shirt in a vice-like grip, she leaned down and hissed in his ear, "If you forget about me, you will pay, boy."

With that, she released him, turned, and spurred her horse away, her ponytail fanning out behind her. The rest of her head, shaved bald, glinted in the sunlight. The dream shattered, falling to pieces as Nemida drifted into a deeper sleep. Upon Llewellis' lap, his lips moved, mouthing the word 'Krusany'.

It was several hours later when Nemida awoke. The first thing he noticed was the last fading rays of sunlight coming in through the open door, painting the wall behind it a sinister red. The next thing he noticed was the warmness of the lap his head rested upon. Llewellis hadn't left him for the whole day. Nemida looked up, and saw that Llewellis was gazing right back down at him, her beautifully pale face framed by a cascade of violet hair. Seeing that he had woken up, Llewellis smiled and innocent smile, and promptly dumped his head off her lap, cracking it on the floor, "Alright, time to get up!"

Nemida groaned slightly, massaging the lump on his head. Llewellis had already sprung to her feet and was playfully searching about the room for something to eat. Nemida figured she must have spent the last eight or so hours doing nothing but providing a spot for his head to lie, yet she still seemed so full of energy. Nemida smiled despite himself. Llewellis' search appeared to come up empty, for the carefree smile on her face was gradually replaced with a petulant pout. Nemida pushed himself up to his feet, though in the process, he inadvertently stuck his hand in the last of the daylight streaming through the doorway. Nemida yanked his hand back, a hiss escaping from his lips as his fingers quickly began to char.

Nemida almost fell over in shock. It wasn't so much the burn that surprised him, he had learned to expect that kind of reaction from sunlight by now. It was the sound he had made afterward. It wasn't a human sound. It didn't even pass as an animalistic sound. It was the sound of a pure, unrepentant aversion to the light. It was a sub-bestial hiss dragged from something that inhabited fetid depths forever cloaked in night. It frightened him. Llewellis must have sensed the fear, for she immediately turned and cradled Nemida's burned hands in her own, "Don't worry, pretty," she reassured, "the burn will go away quick enough, see? It's already fading!"

"It's not that," Nemida said, "What the hell have I become? …am I…one of those things…a wamphyri?"

Llewellis looked at him, pinning him down quite unexpectedly with her seriousness, "You aren't a wamphyri."

Nemida was so taken aback at the sudden change in her tone that he simply believed her, "Then…what am I? I don't breathe, I can't eat, I don't remember anything, and the light of day sears me."

Llewellis' serious glare continued for a second longer before her expression softened. She gave him a smile so warm that Nemida felt guilty for what he had said, "You're Nemida. You may have a different way of surviving now, but inside, you are the same person you always were. Why should you care if you breathe or not? It's when you start thinking that you should get scared."

Llewellis held his gaze for a few moments more. Then, with a giggle, she poked him on the nose with an outstretched finger and twirled around, grabbing the single stale loaf of bread from the pantry. "Hmmpf, you're a whole lot of help. I bet there would be a lot more to eat here if you had been helping out around the house instead of lying in the ground all the time! Okay, time to go now!"

Nemida was still trying to get used to her method of speaking. It was much like her physical actions, full of energy, with new ideas crowding in often before the current ones even had time to fully express themselves. It took him a few seconds to realize that she had moved off the topic of food, "Er, go now?"

"Of course, silly," she said, then, fixing him with a steely gaze that dropped all pretense of light-heartedness, "It's not safe here."

Nemida accepted this on the basis that he was rather confused by everything that had been happening, and figured that letting himself be taken by the flow would be less tiresome than fighting against something whose purpose he did not know, for reasons he was not aware of, to ends that he could not comprehend. "So...what should we take with us?"

"Oh, whatever you can carry and run with at the same time," Llewellis replied, once again slipping back into her, well, Nemida could only assume it was normal, self, "So scissors would be a bad idea."

"What?" Nemida said, but that only made her giggle harder.

Carefully avoiding the last ruddy rays of sunlight, Nemida made his way into the back room of the house. The dim horror of his situation once again rose as Nemida realized that, despite the dusty, pressing darkness of the window-less room, he was having no trouble finding his way through the disorganized piles left by Llewellis' earlier search. Near the back, Nemida noticed a crude chest that looked as though it had clothing in it. Trying his best to ignore the fact that it was too dark in here for him to be seeing as well as he was, he picked his way over to the chest. A brief search revealed a reasonably whole shirt of a dull gray-ish colour, and black britches with relatively few holes that looked like they would fit him. It was at this point that Nemida realized he was still clad in the rather flimsy, torn, and dirt-stained pale funereal garments he had presumably been buried in. Casting a quick glance back to the open doorway, and being reassured by the decidedly busy sounds of Llewellis in the other room, Nemida decided to take a risk and change.

No sooner had he removed the death-shroud that Nemida heard a deceptively innocent sounding titter come from the doorway. Before he realized what he was doing, Nate had turned towards the source of the sound, and saw Llewellis standing in the doorway, framed in the very last of the sun's light. She had her hand over her mouth, as if trying to hold back a great mirth, and was looking at Nemida. It was then that he realized he had no clothes on at the moment. If his blood had still flowed with the vigor of most humans', Nemida would have blushed. As it was, he mumbled incoherently as he hurriedly put on the britches. He was keenly aware of the fact that Llewellis was staring at him intently during the whole process of dressing. With the added speed of embarrassment, Nemida rapidly and efficiently slipped on the shirt…the wrong way around. After such minor wardrobe errors were corrected, he turned, almost sheepishly, back to Llewellis, giving her an inquiring look, as if non-verbally asking whether or not this would do.

As if reading his mind, she replied, "No no, it's very pretty, but it's not complete. I think…this would look good over it."

Nemida's vision went black as Llewellis pegged him in the face with a balled up, hooded black cloak. He managed to get the cloth out of his eyes just in time to see the iron buckle of the leather belt that Llewellis threw right after the cloak strike him soundly between the eyes.

"Oopsie! Sorry!" She squeeked, "I was hoping the cloak would still be on your head to catch that, it's a little softer than your skull."

Massaging the red welt, Nemida quickly, and a little painfully, put on the belt and the cloak.


	5. Chapter 4

4)

"…And the moonlight is so pretty! Like watery milk on the dirt! It splashes across my ti…er…" Llewellis stopped mid-song, seemingly lost in thought.

That was pretty much what the past several hours had been like. Singing, walking, no, it was more of a stroll than anything. The pace set by Llewellis was rather sedate, even if she herself wasn't. While Nemida walked, she bounced happily back and forth, occasionally stopping to roll in the grass, or play with Laumas, who also, apparently, wished to grace them with his presence. Sometimes, the feline would disregard Llewellis' antics, apparently more interested in those strange, invisible things that only cats could see at night. Other times, he would gleefully leap, kitten-like, at the blade of grass that Llewellis dangled tantalizingly over him.

The landscape over the past two hours had gradually turned much more rough. Nemida was not wholly certain, but judging by the direction they had left the house, and the position of the sun when it had set, he guessed they were heading in a vaguely southwestern direction. They passed by many fields, all filmed over with a watery moonlight. The road they followed seemed to alternate between a well-rutted path, to a barely noticeable cleft between tall rows of corn. Now, though, the fields were beginning to thin slightly. Ahead, far in the distance, Nemida saw that another road intersected this one. He had gotten pretty good at ignoring the fact that, even with the aid of the moonlight, there was no way he should have been able to see that far, with that much clarity.

"Titty?" Llewellis asked no one in particular, "It rhymes, but methinks it doesn't quite fit."

She looked down at her own chest, only marginally covered by the outfit she wore, "But it must fit, otherwise it would have fallen off by now."

She shrugged, then skipped ahead, humming unconcernedly. By this time, they had reached the intersection. Nemida looked up at the sign. According to it, they had come from the direction of Pleasant Valley. The trail continued to the southwest, towards the 'Chantry Wood', or so said the sign. To the southeast, apparently, lay the 'Plains of the Broodmother'. The northwest wasn't labeled.

Laumas scampered towards the southeast road and mewled expectantly. "That's right," Llewellis chirped, "We're heading to your favourite forest."

"But isn't the Chantry Wood that way?" Nemida asked, pointing to the other road, and found himself promptly flattened by another deadly stare from Llewellis.

"We don't want to go to the Chantry Wood," She said, a brief moment of fear flashing in her eyes.

Nemida could only nod his assent. Llewellis already seemed to have forgotten the incident and was happily skipping down the southeast road, following Laumas, who had run ahead to investigate an interesting looking patch of dandelions. Apparently, Nemida thought, there was something about the 'Chantry Wood' that Llewellis did not like. He considered asking why. "Why don't you l…"

"Look Laumas!" Llewellis interrupted, "We're almost there!"

Nemida looked as well, the road curved to a more southerly direction now, skirting around the edges of a rather foreboding looking forest. "So that's where we're going?"

"Yup," Llewellis said brightly, "Far within the greeny green-ness! The leaves there are really nice, they'll look directly at that evil sun and say 'No, Your light is just for us, not for the evil burning!' …oh, not that you're evil! I mean the burning of the flesh is evil, even if it's the sunlight doing it!"

Nemida spent a few seconds running that through his head, "So…the trees will block the sun from hitting me?"

"Wow! That's just what I said," Llewellis said.

"And if you want to be able to say anything more, you best be handin' all yer stuff over," said another voice.

By this time, the rather odd looking trio had left the road and were pretty much within the shadow of the trees. It was from these shadows the voice was issued. Nemida looked up sharply. The darkness under the forest canopy was complete, yet Nemida could plainly see the four figures trying ineffectually to hide behind the foliage. They stepped out of the shadows, in what they presumably thought was an intimidating fashion. Nemida stared.

"Oi! What are you lookin' at, boy? We're the ones robbing you!" The figure shouted.

Nemida shook his head slightly, and with an effort, moved his attention back to the four figures who had now drawn rusted swords and surrounded Llewellis and him. For a second, in the darkness of the forest, he had thought he had seen something. But no, not in the darkness, it was almost…between the darkness. It was only a flash, but it had left Nemida with a strange sense of alienation, as if he had seen something that was not supposed to have been seen. He forced himself to pay attention to the bandits that had surrounded him, and their rusted, yet still effective-looking, implements. He looked uncertainly towards Llewellis.

Llewellis promptly went and provided no help whatsoever. In the most blatantly facetious parody of distress, she staggered theatrically, and collapsed daintily to the warm grass, dramatically throwing a forearm to her brow, and imploring in a lilting, helpless-sounding voice, "Oh Nemida, they're so evil! You must save me!"

About a dozen different expressions of confusion collided on Nemida's face. The leader of the bandits stepped forward, waggling his sword aggressively, "Tell you what, boy, just drop that pretty-lookin' staff of yours, and we'll go easy on the lady, deal?"

Nemida looked down, even more confused. He realized he had unconsciously lifted the Staff of the Indigo Void. Again, he looked over at Llewellis, who broke her helpless distress just long enough to give him a wink. Apparently he had to work out what that meant on his own. Pursing his lips uncertainly, he decided he should play along. He raised the staff in what he hoped was an aggressive fashion, "If you want it, you'll have to come take it from me, er, vermin."

The bandit choked back a laugh, then signaled to one of his men. "Okay," He said.

The other bandit stepped forward and, quite simply, took Nemida's staff. The Indigo shaft was nearly out of his hands before Nemida realized what was happening. He tightened his grip, trying to wrest it back from the bandit, who promptly used his other hand to smash the handle of his sword into Nemida's forehead. "Don't play hero, boy, you're not cut out for it," The leader said.

Nemida reeled back, collapsing ungracefully on the grass. One eye began to sting horribly as blood from the newly opened gash on his forehead seeped into it. Nemida was confused, hurt, and uncertain. But, suddenly, it appeared as if Nemida wasn't the only one occupying the lithe, black-cloaked body lying awkwardly on the moon-dappled grass. Nemida was confused, but suddenly, it was as if the confusion had been pushed away as inconsequential, by something else. It was like when he had been struck by sunlight all over again, but this time, it was much more powerful, it was all-consuming.

Something approaching pure instinct woke up in him. In one smooth movement, Nemida regained his feet, letting loose something that wasn't a growl. A growl is a simple, animalistic display of rage. This was something far more than that. This was a primal acknowledgement that he was being threatened, and that he was ready to deal with it. It was more than animalistic, it was the desire to fight and survive, in its purest form, translated into a single sound. The bandits, who had turned their attention to Llewellis, turned as one, a sudden, irrational fear woken in them that had less to do with the cloaked figure standing before them, and more to do with a subconscious, instinctual fear that results when something bites off more than it could chew.

Nemida transferred his gaze from one bandit to another. All clumsiness and uncertainty had fallen from his movements, like the last leaves of autumn are ripped from a sapling by the unmerciful winds of winter. Nemida waited for them to make the first move. In some distant, unimportant part of his mind, he was surprised that he still had full control of himself. There wasn't any 'outside force' dictating his movements, he didn't feel like he was observing his own body in action. His limbs weren't moving on their own volition. He was in control of his movements, but the confusion, uncertainty, fear, and any other emotion that may have interfered with those movements had been quickly and naturally pushed to a part of his mind where they wouldn't cause trouble. They were still there, but disregarded, unimportant. Nemida narrowed his eyes, there was no real difference in what he saw now, but there was a world of difference in what he was focusing on. Nemida didn't focus on the grass, the trees, the moonlight, Llewellis, Laumas (who was now about six meters away, watching the proceedings with mild interest), or the individual bandits. Instead, he focused solely on the patterns of movement. Every twitch, every step, every breath taken by either him or the aggressors was taken into account, he saw how they all fit together.

The patterns shifted as the bandit who had taken his staff lunged forward. Nemida watched in interest as the pattern altered, the lines and curves suddenly bending towards his body, describing the path of the rusty blade and the bandit behind it. So, if he were to bend his own pattern…like so, the blade would miss him entirely, and then, if he twisted the pattern thus, he could break the oncoming pattern in the slightly weaker looking spot right there. Nemida twisted easily out of the way of the bandit's thrust, and with equal grace, swung four rigid, outstretched fingers in an arc that collided sharply with the bandit's neck. The bandit gave a slight gurgle and fell to the ground. The remaining three charged, howling.

Nemida saw the patterns, and in an unobtrusive section of his mind, wondered why he had never focused on them before. There was a sort of beauty, something almost artistic about it, like weaving a tapestry. He would shift his own pattern so that it easily moved between and around the onrushing patterns, then alter it so that it dissected those same patterns from their weak spots, outward. All the bandits knew was that what had originally looked like an easy mark had suddenly changed into a demon in human form. Where their blades went, he simply wasn't. Then, from an angle they never expected, a fist or foot would come flying out and strike them with deadly accuracy. Within five seconds, four twitching, moaning, gurgling mounds surrounded Nemida.

Nemida himself was wholly enjoying this new sensation. Now that the immediate threat was gone, he was free to examine the other patterns that he had not concentrated on before due to more pressing concerns. He delighted in the discovery of a world that lay right before his eyes, yet he had never before seen. The patterns were everywhere, all he had to do was focus on them. Then, an idea popped into his head. What if he were to look in between the patterns? For he could see that there were spaces between them. What was in those spaces? He focused a little further. There was a slight resistance, for the spaces in between were not visible to ordinary human senses. But Nemida was no longer restricted to those senses, all he had to do was allow himself to gaze with something that was not exactly vision, yet was far beyond vision. Then, for just the briefest of moments…he saw.

Llewellis, upon seeing Nemida gazing off into space, leapt to her feet in stark terror, all pretense of helplessness dropped in a flash. The staff! He didn't have the staff on him, which meant that he was unanchored! With a cry of stark terror, she dashed forward and tackled Nemida, aiming it so that both of them fell on top of the Staff of the Indigo Void, which sat discarded on the ground a meter away.

For Nemida, it was as if the patterns had all suddenly funneled into nothingness. It was a long, thin nothingness, in the general shape of a quarterstaff, in fact. He saw the Indigo Void for what it truly was, a Void. All the patterns funneled into it. It was truly a hole, and nothing more. But it was something more, for as soon as he had made contact with it, he could no longer see between the patterns. Not only was it the hole in which all patterns spiraled into, but it was also the veil which hung between the patterns, blocking the view of what lay…beyond.

But it was too late.

Nemida had already seen what lay beyond.

Nemida's mouth opened, but no sound came out. He wanted to scream. But he couldn't. There was no sound he was capable of producing that could articulate the maddening terror that came from that brief glimpse beyond. Nemida's focus drifted, and the patterns faded into the background. He saw the moonlight, the trees, the grass, Llewellis. Yet, all of it hovered in a haze of unreality. Was that was reality was? This thin canvas, painted over, and easily pierced by a mere change of focus, where, below the superficial paint was…what was real…what was there…what was here. Here, right here, sharing the same space as him! Hovering around him, through him! Always there, close enough to touch!

Nemida sobbed involuntarily, curling up on Llewellis' lap. She stroked his hair, whispering all the calming words she knew, trying to absorb some of his blind terror…the maddening, soul-shattering horror that was felt by any who had pierced the veil and saw what lay beyond. Some who saw, simply died of shock, their hearts stilled by what their eyes saw. Others went insane, their minds unable to cope with the reality behind the world they thought they knew, they simply snapped, the frayed edges of their sanity incinerated by the blast of the truth behind the veil. A tear coursed down her cheek. She hoped he could cope. It was not supposed to happen this way. The staff was supposed to protect him from the veil, so long as it was on his person. She had hoped to introduce him to the concept slowly, preparing him in what small way she could. She knew that he would pierce the veil at some point, but she wanted to be there with him, to comfort him from the inevitable shock so that his mind didn't shatter. It was not supposed to happen this way.

Nemida shuddered and sobbed, and Llewellis comforted, knowing that if his mind had truly snapped, her efforts would mean nothing.

--------------------------

The moon shown down, revealing the now-abandoned farmhouse in its watery light. A figure strode around the edge of the house. The house was abandoned, and no one had walked towards or away from it from any direction for the past several hours, yet nevertheless, the figure strode around the corner. He was still clad in the highly incongruous peasant garb. Now, though, two massive klaidmores decorated his outfit. He walked up to the single door of the house and opened it. "Nemida."

He waited, his impassive face betraying no emotion within. He waited some more. The moon, ever vigilant, revealed no betraying movement from within or without the house. The figure turned and strode smoothly away from the house. He reached the crude gravestone and the disturbed soil around it. He turned, unsheathing a klaidmore in a single, smooth motion. The two-meter sword was lifted easily in one hand, pointing towards the moon. Despite the sickly yellow glow of the moonlight, the blade glinted a dull ruby, almost glowing with an internal fire.

The blade seemed to glow a little brighter.

The blade was swung.

A massive explosion rocked the countryside. Burning embers and charred shards of plywood landed dozens of meters away. Where the house stood but a moment before, there was naught but charred ruins.

"He's gone," The figure said, to no one in particular.

The figure strode back to where the house used to be. He once again strode around what used to be the edge. The flames, already dying down, seemed almost to flare up a little higher at his passing. As the flare died away, there was no longer any figure there, human or otherwise.

The gibbous moon continued its trek towards the horizon.


	6. Chapter 5

5)

The world came to Nemida. It was normal again, and he was glad for that. He laughed at the normal landscape. He smiled at the firmly prosaic sky. He practically guffawed at the delightfully mundane trees. Everything was going to be okay again. There would be no more of what he saw a little earlier. He didn't have to look…beyond…ever again.

Nemida's laughter slowly faltered and eventually came to a stop. He didn't like the way it sounded. It was strained. Forced.

Nemida looked around a second time. The manic grin that had previously decorated his face remained, but only in the flesh, not in the spirit. Like the laughter, it was strained. Like the landscape.

All of it. It was forced. A farce of reality. The paint was slathered on in many layers, but the canvas had worn thin in areas. Nemida looked at the canvas. Something within him screamed at him to stop. It would do to stare in a contented stupor at the paint. Nemida didn't. He looked at the canvas, noticed the interwoven strings that made it up. He looked between the strings.

He saw…nothing.

A void. But a pregnant void. There was nothing there, but things breathed in the darkness. Nemida wanted to see the thing, despite the dim, nebulous terror it inspired within him. Giving it definite form would make it less terrifying. Then, he could see its borders, its limits. He wanted to see it and know his fear, rather than leave it as a terrifying, undefined mass of shadow. Nemida looked further, between and through the strings. He felt himself being drawn in. The fear did not abate, but rather grew. Nemida re-thought his earlier desire. Perhaps some things are better left unseen. Suddenly feeling very worried, he tried to go back between the strings, back to the world he thought he knew.

The strings were no longer there. Nemida was in the void. He turned again, feeling the acidic coils of panic tightening around his chest. He no longer had his bearings. He looked down at himself, wondering if his physical form could guide him back. There was nothing there. Nothing of Nemida in the void.

Nemida was the void.

For just a second, Nemida had the briefest glimmer of conception of what true, absolute solitude was. Nemida screamed. Nemida had no mouth to scream with. No sound disturbed the nothingness. The non-existence of Nemida searched desperately for sanity within the void, no longer having even himself for company.

There was something there. At the edges of his perception. Movement that was not quite movement, but something completely different that had only the slightest ties to the concept of movement. The void was full. But Nemida was blind and deaf to its occupants.

Perhaps it was just a matter of adjusting his perception.

Slowly, clumsily, Nemida began to allow his other senses to awaken. Ancient senses, long atrophied and ignored, yet still there, still with their power of perception. Senses that conformed to none of those that he thought he knew. Capable of receiving stimuli missed by sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Capable of detecting that which was invisible to all natural senses. Nemida began to perceive. No possible analogues could be given to any who were restricted to the five mundane senses of what Nemida not-saw. The closest comparison would be like blurred shadows, seen through frosted glass.

Even that distorted glimpse, though, threatened to be too much.

Horribly distorted and muffled, even the vaguest outlines of what populated the void, right within and around the stretched canvas of reality, what was there, around him, through him! Nemida's sanity blanched. Nemida tried to blind himself, stop his ears. But those weren't the senses that received what he now not-saw and not-heard. The line of Nemida's sanity stretched thin, threatened to break.

"A cat, three ducks and a bee,"

The voice carried in, as if from a great distance, yet close, only a few feet away. But that couldn't be right. In the void, there could be no distance, for distance was the measure between to objects, and there were no objects in the void to measure between. It was infinity and nothing at the same time.

"Stared out across the sea,"

But also, why would there be a voice in a place where there was no sound? That didn't seem at all right either.

"Waves crashed…splat!"

Nemida was so surprised by the voice that he forgot all about the other sensations he was experiencing. He wanted to go towards it, for it was sweet, and comforting, and vaguely familiar. But how could he go 'towards' something in the Void, where concepts such as 'towards' and 'away' had no meaning?

"But the horizon it was flat,"

For that is infinity."

The voice drifted to a stop, but Nemida had already determined where it had come from. He strained towards it through the void. He was everywhere and nowhere. The realization struck him, he was. He had form, and if he had form, he most certainly could not be within the void.

Like one who suddenly realizes that he's been walking steadily closer to the edge of a cliff, Nemida jumped back. His perception leaped back through the interwoven strands of the reality seen by most people. His eyes snapped open. The canvas was still there. It may be thin, and it may take naught but looking at it in the wrong angle to see past it, but it was there. Nemida looked up, and saw a form resting upon the canvas. The form was shaped like a Llewellis. She smiled, "Did you like my song?"

"It was…relaxing," Nemida said, slowly re-acquainting himself with the intricacies of controlling a physical body. Odd, he never realized what a complicated task it was until he had left it for a while.

"I'm glad you came back."

"Where had I gone?"

"Here."

"But I couldn't have been here, if I had left."

"You left, but you remained here all the same."

"It didn't look like here."

"But it was here all the same, merely seen differently."

Giggling happily, Llewellis unceremoniously dumped Nemida's head from its resting place on his lap to the cool ground and leapt to her feet, "Come on, silly, the sun will be up soon, we need to get your precious, sensitive skin under the trees!"

Nemida looked around, and noticed the four unconscious forms lying around him on the ground. One was groaning and twitching slightly. Laumas bounced back and forth, pouncing on the twitching fingers. "What happened?"

"You saw things differently," Llewellis replied lightly.

"Yeah, I know that, otherwise I would be the one on the ground right now."

"You are on the ground right now."

"But I'm conscious. What happened afterward though?"

"That was a mistake."

Nemida looked up at Llewellis. The last statement was stated with none of the light, burbliness of her normal speech. She stood by him, holding out the Staff of the Indigo Void, "Take this, and never let it go until you are ready to."

"Why?"

"You saw why, and you were lucky enough to come back after seeing it."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing at all…and everything there is."

"I'm confused."

"But you're sane, be happy for that. I am!" and thus, she skipped off into the woods.


End file.
